Pathfinder & Dragon Age Volume 1: Rise of the Runelords
by Leonard1
Summary: In a land where goblin tribes war on the doorsteps of villages, ogre raiding parties pillage as they see fit, and ancient cults arise after hundreds of years to resume their dark ways, yet another evil begins to creep up from the tombs of history and threaten the very survival of the world. Only four heroes, unbeknownst to even themselves, can tame and save the wild land of Varisia


**Introduction & Concept**

First of all, let me go ahead and thank you for taking interest in this tale and clicking on it. Now, allow me a moment to talk a little about myself and about what I hope to do with this series of stories.

My name is David and I was first introduced to table-top roleplaying games when I was about fifteen. My friend, who was introduced to them by his older brother, showed me my very first pen and paper game: Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. Prior to this event, I was already an RPG nerd. I loved Final Fantasy, the Tales games, Lord of the Rings, Star Ocean, Lord of the Rings, Pokemon, etc…Did I mention Lord of the Rings?

Anyway, I quickly fell in love. However, as fate would have it, I lived in a very small area with only a single, even smaller gaming store to look to in order to satisfy my obsession…and it didn't work very well. So I took to creating dozens upon dozens upon dozens of characters – most based off of some of my favorite characters from other fantasy mediums, and running combat encounters myself, and, despite how lonely and pathetic that might seem, it was fairly enjoyable. I also started reading adventure modules on my own and playing out scenes in my head; imagining how my characters would handle situations, or how events could affect them. I would write adventures that never had the chance to be played out, and tried at least half a dozen times to create my own, new system for D&D.

Eventually, I decided to branch off from 4th edition when I thought I'd seen enough of it and look for other table tops that caught my interest. Needless to say, the first things I looked for was a Lord of the Rings game, which wasn't difficult to find. I also found several others that weren't entirely to my tastes, but were good enough. Eventually, I decided to check out other editions of D&D, and took a look at Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (or 2nd edition D&D). It was waaaAAAaaay over my head. It was so different from the 4th edition I was use to and so much more complicated. I immediately put it away, and decided to look at D&D 3.5 (I had prior input to steer clear of 3rd edition). I found myself enjoying 3.5 a lot more than 4th edition, as it had slightly more depth, if a lot more rules to learn, and didn't seem quite as much like a hack n' slash video game. But despite it all, I couldn't help but feel there was something missing…And that's when I found the holy grail of table-tops.

Pathfinder. Pathfinder, Pathfinder, Pathfinder. To this day, it remains my single favorite table-top RPG, and from it is half of where these stories will come from. And this is where part two of "About Me" comes in. I love writing, and I do have a small amount of talent for it. However, I am plagued by problems that seem to constantly derail this talent of mine.

The first problem is that I have difficulty being original (hence why I've turned to fanfiction…no offense). I often find myself taking from movies or video games or books when running out of ideas while writing, which frustrates me greatly and eventually leads to me tossing the story away. Which leads to problem two, which, simply put: I have a short attention span.

I want to write stories and become published someday, although I don't care too much if I become known for my tales, as my true interests lie elsewhere in the criminal justice system. But it is a small passion of mine, and fantasy has become a huge part of my life since the first time I popped the duel-disk edition of Final Fantasy 4 and Chrono Trigger into my playstation. My hope is that writing these stories will allow me an opportunity to get my unoriginality out of my system, and possibly inspire myself with new ideas to get me on track to writing my first real book.

Now about the concept; it's fairly simple. I will be taking some of the characters from the Dragon Age video game series (yes, I have the table-top game for that, too, and I love it) and throwing them into adventure paths created for the Pathfinder roleplaying game. This seems like an interesting idea to me, as swapping settings with these characters gives me an opportunity to change characteristics about not only their background, but also their personalities and very being. So even readers who are familiar with the Dragon Age characters may find a few surprises here and there. I will have this short introduction at the beginning of every story, and at the very bottom will be links to where you can view character sheets I have created for the characters, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

I'm also aware that there might be readers who are familiar with the Dragon Age half of this concept, but not with the Pathfinder setting. To try and help with this a little bit, part of the first chapter of each story will be dedicated to establishing surroundings and lead-ups to the events that are about to unfold.

I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I hope that I will have tons of fun writing these, and I welcome all forms of healthy criticism.


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